


i'm not getting out of here this time

by Duck_Life



Series: i brought a lemon to a knife fight [1]
Category: X-Factor (Comics)
Genre: Brainwashing, Gladiators, M/M, Mojoworld, Rebellion, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 19:51:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16024811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Shatterstar returns to Mojoworld against his will, 100 years before his own time. (Based on X-Factor #259)





	i'm not getting out of here this time

> "I've clawed my way out of here before  
> But I keep on coming back"  
> \- The Wombats

When Shatterstar hits the ground, his first thought is that he's dead. He must have died. He can withstand a lot, but being disintegrated by a Hell God isn't exactly on the list. 

So. Dead then. That could be okay. He could learn to make that okay. 

That's when he opens his eyes and realizes that he only wishes he were dead. 

It's all familiar— the cool pavement beneath him, the fluorescent lights, the hovering electronic billboards in the distance. He swore he'd never set foot on Mojoworld again.

He stumbles to his feet.

“Hey!” A man with an overgrown red beard runs toward him, looking astonished. “What the… ? Who are you?”

He swallows, tasting bile at the back of his throat and fighting the hectic urge to  _ run, run, run _ . “My name is Shatterstar,” he says. “I came here from Earth.”

The man clicks his tongue, getting closer to take a better look at him. Shatterstar shrinks inward, self-conscious. He doesn't like the man’s eyes on him.

It's not sexual. He knows that, he knows a lot more about  _ that _ since the last time he was here. The man is examining him, appraising him. Like a racehorse. Like

( _ strong fighting stock, hasn't lost a match yet, just watch him, folks, look at the way he moves _ )

The man puts a hand on his arm. “You say you're from Earth, but you look like one of ours. You said your name was Shatterstar?”

“It is.” The man moves his hand to Shatterstar’s jaw, tilting his head down to look at the black mark around his eye. “Please stop touching me.”

He doesn't. Shatterstar didn't really expect him to. 

“You would be a great help to the cause,” the man muses. “My DNA templates are far from perfect. I can make good use of your genes, churn out more rebels to join in the fight.” The man means to make copies of him, an endless line of copies,  _ Gaveedra 7.1, Gaveedra 7.2, Gaveedra 7.3 _ … The man means to take his hair and blood and bile and use it to create soldiers. 

“I’m not a product,” he says, shaking off the man’s hands. “I don’t want you to make more of me.”

“But that’s what I do,” the man says. “I make. I create. I am Arize the Creator.”

“Arize… ? But…” He looks around, trying to see past the sickening commercialism to the mundane things— the wear and tear of the buildings, the hairstyles of the women on the nearest television screen. “What year is it?”

Arize tells him. He’s 100 years away from the right time. 

“I need to return to Earth,” Shatterstar says. “My friends, my team, they’re in trouble. Do you have any method of transportation that can get me out of the Mojoverse?” 

Arize strokes his beard. “Perhaps,” he says, and then he gestures to a decrepit building behind him. “If you would step into my lab, I can explain it further.”

* * *

Julio— and Cable, and Domino, and Tabitha and Theresa and almost everyone, really— used to call him naive, back on Earth. He always assured them he was not, and that nearly two decades of fighting in gladiatorial combat taught him

_ (go right for the guts, there he goes, ladies and gents, absolutely disemboweling the latest contestant. There he is, folks, the man who could shatter the) _

not to trust openly or leave any vulnerable spots unprotected. 

Turns out his friends were right, though. Arize shows him a pod that he says can travel through the stars, but once Shatterstar sits in it it seals closed and restraints pop out to lock him down. “Don’t fret,” Arize says. “I’ll only take what I need, nothing more. You’re going to get this revolution off the ground, Shatterstar.” 

* * *

Arize makes more of him.

* * *

The first mission the newly minted rebels go on is rescuing a convoy of humanoid slaves on their way to one of Mojo’s reeducation mills. The rebels, some of them distorted versions of Shatterstar and others distorted versions of Arize’s other “templates,” pour out of the safehouse. Shatterstar moves as if to go with them, but Arize’s hand comes up and pulls him back. “Can’t risk you, you’re too important,” he says. “I need your DNA intact, not mangled in a failed attempt to spare people from Mojo’s insanity.”

Shatterstar shakes his hand off. “I already fought this war,” he says. “And I am still 

_ (the fiercest gladiator in the ring, lookathim go, he moves like lightning as he stalks forward to attack his next victim, teeth bared) _

intact. I can go.” 

“You will not fight,” Arize says sternly, his hand resting on a tray of his more formidable experimentation tools. “Or you will regret it, Shatterstar.” 

* * *

Shatterstar stays.

* * *

It’s been a long time since he was away from Julio, and he’s unused to being without an anchor. Aside from the tactical fact that he can’t teleport anywhere, it makes him impossibly lonely. He’s unmoored, with no connection to anyone around him, not the rebels, definitely not Arize.

At least Julio is still on Earth, he reminds himself. Surely Layla and Rahne and the others have figured out a way to stop Mephisto and set the world right again. And if he can ever get back to Earth, he’ll be able to go home to X-Factor Investigations and return to the arms of the man he loves. 

He thinks about that as Arize draws more and more blood and hacks off pieces of his hair and extracts bone marrow to build more soldiers. 

* * *

When he hears the tune coming from the TV, Shatterstar tenses up, wants to bring his hands up to cover his ears. He’s facing away from the TV, but the noise tells him all he needs to know. That's the intro music, the fanfare. And it always, always, always leads into

“ _ Gooooood evening, folks! Don't touch that dial. You don't want to miss tonight's grand event. We're introducing a brand-new competitor into the arena, someone with talent like you've never seen!” _

“They've been advertising this fight all day,” one of the rebels mumbles, sneering at the television set. “Someone from offworld. Poor bastard.”

“ _... for his first fight in the ring. And I just know you, dear audience, are QUAKING with anticipation.” _

No. No. 

_ “He may be new to Mojoworld, but I guarantee you that he's already used to the RUMBLE of the crowd! Put your hands together for—” _

_ No. _

_ “... RICTOR!!” _

Shatterstar whirls around to face the TV and there, there he is. In seconds he's got his nose almost pressed to the screen, close enough that he can see the red and blue and green pixels making up the picture, but even then he recognizes the man walking into the arena. “Julio.”

“You know that guy?”

Shatterstar says nothing, but his hand comes up to touch the screen, like he can reach Julio through it. Mojo prattles on about odds and sponsors, and Shatterstar watches Julio’s opponent lurch toward him, blades swinging. 

The fight is brutal, and despite his long history of fighting in front of Mojo’s bloodthirsty crowds, Shatterstar has never experienced a fight in this way. When he was a gladiator, he fought only to protect his honor, his glory. His life was an afterthought. 

Julio’s life is anything but. 

He watches as Julio dodges and blocks each attack, skirting around his opponent and coming far too close to getting hacked to pieces by the other man’s swords. Shatterstar’s stomach boils with anxiety and he longs to be there, to protect Julio. 

Finally, Julio sends a pulse through the ground and knocks the other man down hard enough that he doesn’t get back up. 

Shatterstar realizes, suddenly, that he’s been holding his breath for the duration of the fight. 

_ “Let’s give Rictor a hand, folks! It’s about time somebody really SHOOK THINGS UP around here. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of R— _ ” 

The rebel who spoke earlier switches off the TV and tugs Shatterstar away from the screen. “Shatterstar.”

“H— he’s…”

“Shatterstar, you’re shaking,” the rebel says. His name is Quark, Shatterstar’s pretty sure. “Here, sit down.” Quark guides him to the nearest cot and positions him on a corner of it. “Are you alright?”

“He’s not supposed to be here,” Shatterstar bites out, feeling panic and despair like splinters in his chest. “He isn’t supposed to be here, he is supposed to be safe on Earth and n-not here, because, uhm, because…”

“None of us are supposed to be here,” Quark reminds him. “That man… Rictor. He’s a friend of yours?”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Shatterstar sighs, and that’s a word he still just barely understands how to explain but it’s the truth. “He’s not… he should not be here. He can’t survive the arena.”

Quark looks at the blank TV screen and back at Shatterstar. “I don’t know, it kind of looked like he was holding his own.” 

“He should not be here,” Shatterstar says, shaking his head harshly. “I thought he was safe, I thought…” 

“Well, hey, look at it this way,” Quark says. “We’re going tomorrow to bust out another of Mojo’s slave camps. Maybe your boyfriend will be there.”

Shatterstar looks up at him, realizing suddenly that his hair has grown long enough to get in his eyes. “Arize will not let me go.” 

“Shatterstar,” he says, “I kinda get the feeling that nobody can  _ let _ you do anything.”

Quark’s right. 

* * *

Shatterstar goes on a recon mission with the rebels, sticking close to Quark. They move like fog through Mojo City and climb the spires close to the arena for a better vantage point. They spend two days watching the guards come and go.

He’s actually able to provide some insight on this, at least. The guards

( _ will not be spoken to directly, Gaveedra-7. Such insolence will result in demerits and reduction of meal privileges _ )

have four shifts that rotate. They learn to recognize the pattern of guards entering and leaving the arena but can discern nothing else. They do not see any slaves. 

Shatterstar develops a nauseating routine as he starts going out more and more with the rebels. He strategizes, spies, occasionally engages in combat with Mojo’s forces. Sometimes they come up against other bipeds, but they also fight troops of Spineless Ones, spindling forward on their mechanical legs. 

When Julio fights, Shatterstar watches. He watches every fight, comparing the deadly dance to his own memories of the arena. He watches the way Julio sometimes hesitates before striking a blow, compassion and regret evident on his face even through the vid screen, and he loves him for that even as he worries it will get him cancelled. 

* * *

The rebels sit inside Arize’s bunker one night, backs to the wall, illuminated by dusty fluorescent bulbs, and one of them asks about the arena games. Shatterstar recognizes him vaguely, recognizes the parts of his own genetic makeup that have been put into this young rebel. He sees himself in the line of the boy’s jaw, in his single white eye. Arize has made tweaks, of course, taken whatever makes Shatterstar  _ Shatterstar _ and added to it, changed it, created an amalgam of different lifeforms. “What is it like?” the amalgam asks. “The arena. The fighting.”

Shatterstar draws his knees toward his chest, staring at the concrete floor. “In my past… which is the future of this planet,” he explains, “I was a famed gladiator. Many victories, high ratings. Everything I did was… controlled. And not by me.”

* * *

One night, Shatterstar returns from a mission to find a familiar face among Arize’s latest batch of rebels. He stares in amazement at a man he trusts, a man he cares about, a man he has fought beside for years.

Longshot stares back with no recognition.

* * *

The next time the rebels go out, they end up coming face to face with Mojo himself. Shatterstar doesn’t think, just reacts, almost like he’s back in the arena. With his head and heart pounding, he leaps at Mojo. And then everything cuts out, like a television set losing reception.

Shatterstar makes a keening noise low in his throat, struggling against the heavy bonds strapping him down. He was an idiot, a fool, to lunge at Mojo the way he did, but he could not stop hearing the filthy dictator’s voice, lording over the fights, jeering and commentating as Julio fought to preserve himself. 

He never even got his hands on Mojo. The guards were on him in an instant, knocking him out and neutralizing him and now he is 

_ (in the Reeducation Room, because that's where noncompliant fighters go. Are you noncompliant, Gaveedra-7? _ )

strapped to this infernal chair. The wall of screens in front of him remains dark, off. Small mercies.

He can't turn his head, so he hears the terrible clicking of Mojo’s spider-legs before he sees the monster himself. “ _ Shh _ ,” he whispers to himself frantically, steeling himself to be brave as Mojo nears closer. “ _ Shhh _ . You can still fight. You can still get out.”

He snaps his mouth shut when Mojo rounds the corner in all his gelatinous awfulness. “Ah! Awake at last, my new ratings grab,” he chortles, moving closer. Shatterstar flinches and hates himself for it. He remembers times like this, sitting quietly while Mojo spoke to his handlers about him as if he were an automaton. Of course, this Mojo has never seen him. This is Mojo in the early years of the slaughter games, before Shatterstar’s name was ever shouted by crowds of Spineless Ones. “Did anyone ever tell you you’ve got a face for television? That jawline, my goodness. You’ll be drawing in sponsors in no time.” He gets too close and Shatterstar snaps his teeth at him, knowing he can’t do anything and hating that feeling of helplessness. “Hmm, which a few tweaks. You’re from Earth, right? I can tell, I recognize the speech patterns, the genetic makeup.” Arize hasn’t made too many cloned gladiators yet, then. It seems that, so far, Mojo’s fighters are just people he’s kidnapped, like Rictor. “So tell me, Earth-man, what’s your favorite TV show?”

Shatterstar clenches his jaw, refuses to answer. And an electric shock runs through him, jolting him, causing him to cry out against his will.

“Ah-ah,” Mojo tuts, waggling a horrible, long finger in front of him. “Answer me, Earth-man. Your favorite television program?”

Even scared and angry and still shaken from the electrocution, Shatterstar remembers that he’s out of his own time here, and he can’t give an anachronistic answer. “ _ M*A*S*H, _ ” he says, because that’s mostly true. 

“ _ M*A*S*H _ ,” Mojo repeats. “Did you know that the writers of  _ M*A*S*H  _ came up with quite an ingenious way to control the actors?” He grins, his terrible yellow teeth sticking out of his yellower gums. “When the actors complained about the scripts, the writers would punish them by changing the scripts to make it parka weather. Keep in mind, they were filming in Malibu in 100-degree weather, but because of the scripts, the actors had to wear heavy coats while filming.” He smirks. “They stopped complaining after that.” Mojo flips a switch and all the screens on the wall flare to life, each showing different programs. Some are Earth TV shows like “ _ Happy Days _ ” and “ _ The Partridge Family _ ” while others are reruns of the slaughter games or other Mojo productions. “I prefer a more straightforward approach.” 

He flips another switch, and another surge of electricity flows through Shatterstar. He clacks his teeth together, clamps his mouth shut, but it’s not fast enough to keep out the cry of pain. Over his own shouting, he hears Mojo laugh again and leave the room, clicking all the way. 

It isn’t just the electrocution and the overstimulation via television. Guards come in and inject him with  _ something _ , and although he struggles, he feels the needle in his arm. He feels his brain get fuzzier. 

Before everything goes dark, his last conscious thought is of Julio. 

* * *

The gladiator is suited up and ready for the fight, helmet fastened and armor tightly secured. This is only the third fight he can remember, but his body is one of a fighter’s. He suspects he has won many battles before today.

When the arena gate opens he goes out sprinting, giving his opponent no chance to get the upper hand. This is how he wins— swiftly, with force, showing no mercy. This is how he will win today. 

Rather than fight him directly, the opponent is staring at him, behaving strangely. The gladiator assesses his opponent quickly— just a single blade, hardly any armor. He will fall easily. The gladiator leans in for an attack and instead of fighting back, the opponent ducks out of the way and jumps out of his reach. 

A coward, then, running instead of fighting, dodging instead of blocking. The gladiator readies for another blow and then watches the opponent lean down,  _ reach _ into the ground and send out a wave. The gladiator is thrown back. 

He attacks again, and again the opponent dodges. This time he shoots the ground-power directly at the gladiator, knocking him down. His helmet flies off. 

The opponent yells a name—  _ Shatterstar _ — which is odd because that is not his name, he does not have a name, he has

_ (Designation: Gaveedra-7 _ )

nothing but his swords and his armor, and now the opponent has taken that away, cracked his helmet. He is vulnerable now.

He must fight.

He must win.

He lunges for the opponent, ignoring the opponent’s feeble attempts to distract and unsettle him. 

The opponent is shorter than him, weaker physically, but he has power, uses it to crack the ground, shake it. 

The gladiator understands how the opponent’s power works, how he taps into natural fault lines and amplifies them, bends them to his own will. Doesn't know how he knows that.

It's not exactly right, either. The opponent does not use his power to control the earth, never has. He uses it to connect to the earth, work with it, speak to it. It is not about power, it is about communication.

His palms are cold, clammy, and he does not know why he knows more about the opponent than he knows about himself. Before now, each opponent has been nameless and meaningless, each has fallen beneath his swords, but this one—

_ a pick-up truck rumbling down a desert road _

_ rough hands holding his _

_ a shared bed, warm and safe _

_ His name is _

* * *

The gladiator shakes his head furiously, hair falling into his face, and he lunges again at the opponent, now certain his power exceeds control of the ground to include control of others’ brains. How else could these foreign images be rising up to meet him?

_ hands on his face _

_ “It’s okay. Whatever happened, it’s gonna be fine. No worries.” _

_ popcorn and movies on the couch _

_ His name is _

The gladiator kicks the opponent down, leans over him with one sword raised, realizes the opponent is speaking, telling him something. Begging for his life? Maybe getting in one final threat before the gladiator silences him? “Shatterstar.” That name again, that name that belongs to nothing and no one and yet sounds familiar. And the gladiator thinks, again, of the opponent’s name. 

_ His name is _

“I love you,” the opponent says, ludicrously. “And I forgive you. Do what you gotta do.”

The gladiator does not want to win this way, with his opponent giving up, lying peacefully on the ground and refusing to fight back. There is no honor in this. He will not forfeit, though. He snarls, lifts his sword and

_ His name is Julio. _

Shatterstar barely has time to drop the sword before the blast of electricity knocks him out cold, and then there is only blankness. 

* * *

When Shatterstar opens his eyes, the face swimming before his vision is the first thing he’s aware of. “Rictor…?” he says, feeling like he’s been slammed into concrete several times. “You look like hell…” And then it all comes rushing back into his head. Rictor  _ does _ look like hell, and it’s all Shatterstar’s fault. He remembers it all now, like a bad dream— fighting him, kicking him down, trying to kill him.

By some miracle, Julio doesn’t shy away from him or run screaming. He flips open the biochamber with shaking hands and reaches out, puts one hand to the side of Shatterstar’s face and it’s such a soft gesture, and Shatterstar realizes with a jolt how  _ lonely _ he has been. “Oh my God,” Julio says, love and concern in his voice and not a trace of betrayal, and Shatterstar feels sure he will never deserve Julio Richter. “Are you okay?” 

But he doesn’t have the time he wants to reunite with Julio. Honestly, it would take years for him to feel recovered, years of existing peacefully with Julio safe at his side, years of loving and living without harm, for him to feel ready to face Mojo again. He gets a couple seconds. 

Then Mojo and his forces blast through the wall and Shatterstar tries to force himself to his feet. He stumbles and falls, and Julio is there to lift him up again, making promises he only wishes he could keep. 

Shatterstar feels a pang in his chest. “You’re trying to protect me, and that’s sweet,” he says, holding his swords up. “But it’s not going to work.” 

For too long, he has been unmoored and alone. Now he reaches out to Julio, feels their connection like a homing beacon. Finally, finally, he actually has someone to reach out to. He tears open reality, and they jump into the future together.    
  


**Author's Note:**

> Mojo's fun fact from "M*A*S*H" is true.   
> I want to shout out "outside the gilded cage" by carrionkid because it's really good and I'm also 99% I got stylistically influenced by it while working on this fic and the sequel.


End file.
